Letter to My Son by Ta-Nehisi Coates

The text ‘Letter to My Son’ by Ta-Nehisi Coates underscores the unacceptable consequences that have become prevalent in society due to racial bias and prejudice that has been embedded towards different individuals. Coates enumerates various names of black individuals who got their innocent lives taken away due to incompetent police officers who hold racial biases and assumptions against people from the black ethnic group. Living in America as a black individual Ta-Nehisi Coates quotes that “To be black in the Baltimore of my youth was to be naked before the elements of the world, before all the guns, fists, knives, crack, rape, and disease.” Hence, Coates evokes a sense of shock towards the audience, by highlighting the mundane struggles people from the black ethnic group go through.

These devastating events don’t only reflect how stereotypes and racial biases influence society, but also highlights the huge influence of history as Coates mentions the enslavement of Africans, hence as Africans were treated as slaves in America in the past. The notion of slavery and this kind of assumption may have been carried forward in order to influence such stereotypes and prejudice that exist in our society today. In the text, Coates states that “The enslaved were not bricks in your road, and their lives were not chapters in your redemptive history. They were people turned to fuel for the American machine. Enslavement was not destined to end, and it is wrong to claim our present circumstance—no matter how improved—as the redemption for the lives of people who never asked for the posthumous, untouchable glory of dying for their children.” Therefore, instead of associating slaves to be seen as inferior, they should instead be treated with more respect and dignity as they were individuals who played a significant role in getting America to where it is today. 

As this text is written in the form of a letter towards Coates’s son, it is written in a fairly stringent tone as Coates warns his son about the harsh reality that consequences in a myriad of challenges and unequivocal situations. This type of tone casts a sense of empathy towards the audience as stereotypes have existed for generations after generations, hence as these racial biases have already been embedded in society, this won’t only take a preposterous amount of time to alter, but will also lead to numerous amount of catastrophic events. 

One quote that really stood out to me was when Coates asserted that “White America” is a syndicate arrayed to protect its exclusive power to dominate and control our bodies.”, as I felt that this prominently reflected the current society that we’re living in, not only in America but in other countries as well. Although each and everyone should be treated equally, certain ethnic groups are seen to be more superior than others, inevitably leading to such devastating events that should be unacceptable in the society we live in today.